We're a family of 4 based in the North East of England and welcome you to follow us on our frugal journey from street house to small holding, fast food to self sufficiency (well as much as possible) and shop bought to home made. The highs and lows will all be recorded with lots of pictures along the way. From livestock to veggies and rides out on the horses to countryside walks with the dogs, we plan on making the most of every minute.

Monday, 29 May 2017

Monday night preserving - dehydrating fruit

A quick preserving post tonight with it being Bank Holiday. We've had a lovely family day and are back to work tomorrow.
We recently bought a Andrew James dehydrator and have been using it to preserve different things but it's all just trial and error for now.
Now most of the slicing and dicing requires a thinner cut than I can achieve with a knife. Safely at least! So we decided to trial a food slicer. It was £28 from Argos and we hope it'll be a good addition to the preserving tools we're building up. Of course there were really expensive models of the dehydrator and food slicer but we decided to go for budget on both and see how much use we get of them. Then it'll help us decide in the future if we ever have to replace them.
So today we've used it to slice fresh pineapple which it could do to a thickness of 5mm and I was very impressed with it.
We dried it out for the recommended time and it came out a treat and it's absolutely delicious. The dehydrator takes 4 pineapples so we know this for next time they're on offer.
We will use it for snacking on instead of biscuits and also if I need to add it to any recipes. Healthier too!
It's not seasonal, which is what I intended to use the Monday night preserving slot for, but it's on offer and I feel the two things go hand in hand as pineapple isn't something I've managed to grow yet!! Not to mention that there are no additive or preservatives in this, which there are in the shop bought ones.
Next week i will be posting more about rhubarb. We're fast approaching June and the season will be over shortly after that as I'll let the plants rest and restore themselves for 2018 season! Incidentally, we're moving the rhubarb when it is dormant later in the year, as we've had an idea to use some space at the front of the house.

Good on you. Yes a food slicer is very useful. I also use it for cooking a larger joint than we would normally have and then thinly slice the beef and vacuum pack (a vacuum packer/sealer which is also very helpful) or thinly slice and then add to gravy so that a meal can be made very simply mid week. I am always looking through the reduced counter these days to see what I can dry. Grapes, mushrooms (mushrooms can be dried and then turned into a powder which can be added to soups to give a little more flavour). Pot Marigold is a useful flower to dry as its petals are often known as poor mans saffron. It can be added to rice to add a little colour, used in oil which is a very good healing oil for the home apothecary it is very gentle and so if your skin is sensitive is a very good one to use. Grapeseed oil is a good carrier oil to use. Take care keep up the good work and enjoy the journey. Pattypan x

Hi Tricia, you always leave such helpful comments thank you. We decided on a food slicer as hopefully we will use it for other things such as bread and meat as you suggest. Batch cooking is something I still need to master. Interesting re poor mans saffron too, thanks. I've jojoba as a carrier oil at the moment and seems nice with lavender x

I bought a dehydrator, but need to get myself organized on using it more often. I passed on some bargain strawberries last week, thinking "They need to be eaten quickly" and knowing too many give me the collywobbles. I clean forgot I could have dehydrated them. Gormless . . .